Singapore is one of the major adopters of AI in healthcare in the world, particularly in areas such as disease detection and improving patient outcomes. 

What drives this significant feat is an effective collaboration among healthcare stakeholders, especially between providers and the Ministry of Health, whose vision of an interconnected health system predicated by digital technologies is carried out by its national health technology agency, Synapxe. 

Andy Ta, Director of Data Analytics and AI (DNA) and Chief Data Officer at Synapxe, spoke with Healthcare IT News on how the organisation pursues AI integrations across public health facilities, spotlighting two new AI projects – AI Medical Imaging Platform for Singapore’s Public Healthcare (AimSG) and Assisted Chronic Disease Explanation using AI (ACE-AI). 

He shared what drives them to further innovate, especially in AI, and its immediate yet careful applications to solve healthcare issues of national concern. 

Ta also spoke of health technology trends in the new year, and shared where he thinks generative AI, which popularity boomed last year, will provide the most benefit to healthcare. 

Q. Alongside its 15th-anniversary celebration, Synapxe announced two major AI initiatives/projects – ACE-AI and AimSG. Where are you now with both projects? 

A. At Synapxe, we are guided by the Health IT Master Plan (HITMAP) to set up common data analytics capabilities to unlock insights about our population to enable early detection of diseases and more personalised patient care. As the national health tech agency, Synapxe has rolled out various AI-driven initiatives that aim to create intelligent technological soluti...